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(Sharecast News) - Nvidia announced a strategic partnership with data centre operator IREN overnight on Friday, to accelerate the deployment of large-scale artificial intelligence infrastructure, including a potential investment of up to $2.1bn in the company.
Under the deal, Nvidia and IREN planned to support the rollout of up to 5 gigawatts of Nvidia DSX-aligned AI infrastructure across IREN's global data centre pipeline over time.
The companies said future deployments were expected to focus on IREN's 2-gigawatt Sweetwater campus in Texas, which they expect to serve as a flagship site for Nvidia's DSX architecture.
As part of the partnership, IREN issued Nvidia a five-year right to buy up to 30 million ordinary shares at an exercise price of $70 each, giving Nvidia the right to invest up to $2.1bn, subject to conditions including regulatory approvals.
"AI factories are becoming foundational infrastructure for the global economy," said Jensen Huang, Nvidia's founder and chief executive.
"Deploying these systems at scale requires deep integration across the full stack - compute, networking, software, power and operations.
"IREN brings the scale and infrastructure expertise to help accelerate the buildout of next-generation AI infrastructure globally. Together, we are building for the age of AI."
The agreement was intended to combine Nvidia's AI systems and architecture with IREN's expertise in power, land, data centres, GPU deployment and infrastructure operations.
IREN, formerly focused on bitcoin mining under the name Iris Energy, had increasingly shifted towards AI cloud infrastructure, offering GPU capacity to enterprise and AI-native customers.
Daniel Roberts, IREN's co-founder and co-chief executive, said: "This partnership combines Nvidia's AI systems and architecture leadership with IREN's expertise across power, land, data centers, GPU deployment and infrastructure operations.
"Together, we believe we can accelerate deployment of AI infrastructure and expand access to compute for AI-native and enterprise customers globally."
Separately, IREN said it had signed a five-year, $3.4bn AI cloud contract to provide Nvidia with access to managed GPU cloud services for its internal AI and research workloads.
CNBC said that deployment would be at IREN's existing data centres in Childress, Texas.
The partnership came amid surging demand for computing power from large technology companies and AI model developers.
Reuters said the four largest US technology groups signalled last week that AI spending would not slow, with combined outlays set to surpass $700bn this year.
IREN had already signed a major AI infrastructure agreement with Microsoft, agreeing last year to provide GPU cloud infrastructure in a deal worth about $9.7bn.
As part of that agreement, IREN said it would buy roughly $5.8bn of Nvidia-powered GPUs and related equipment from Dell Technologies.
Nvidia had made a series of investments and commercial agreements across the AI infrastructure supply chain, including deals involving CoreWeave, Nebius, Coherent, Lumentum and Corning.
Bloomberg said the strategy had drawn criticism from some observers as circular because Nvidia is investing in companies that buy its chips, though Huang had rejected that characterisation.
At 0651 EDT (1151 BST), shares in Nvidia Corporation were up 0.91% in premarket trading in New York at $213.42.
Reporting by Josh White for Sharecast.com.